sshd: login_name [priv] status

[Eric Vought]

> From: <arora.himanshu at gmail.com>
> Date: February 7, 2005 2:58:31 AM CST
> To: fedora-list at redhat.com
> Subject: sshd: login_name [priv] status
> Reply-To: arora.himanshu at gmail.com, For users of Fedora Core releases 
> <fedora-list at redhat.com>
>
>
> Hi folks,
>            Just want to know what is sshd: login_name [priv] status.
> It is shown up when command  w is used and it is specific to some
> login. I tried searching it on google but i did not find anything. Can
> this status be turned on by default ? If it is on, how can i turn it
> off.
>
> Himanshu Arora

I believe this is a consequence of the (relatively) new priviledge 
separation in ssh. In order to make ssh more secure, it runs as two 
separate processes, one priviledged (root) which does next to nothing, 
the other is more complex but has only the user's permissions. This is 
a good thing. It measn that if someone finds a security hole in sshd, 
they will have a hard time escalating it into a root exploit.